"Take Care"

Everybody says it but not everybody means it. That includes all the doctors and veterinarians out there. Between this awful marathon of my mongo Sinus Infection and Milo’s recent diagnosis of pneumonia it’s been a rough and expensive week for the sickly.

Ironically enough, my rapidly declining health conditions, failed doctor’s visits and my newly adopted financial frugality led me to a gold mine of “Quality of Care”: Walgreens.

How did I stumble across this hidden treasure? For the sole purpose of spiting my primary care physician, who failed to properly diagnose me the first time and left me with the option of either splurging for Friday night “Urgent Care” costs or suffering the entire weekend sans antibiotics.
To my own surprise, I had actually ended the angry phone call with:
“No thanks. I’d rather go to Walgreens.” *click*.

… Holy cow. Did I actually just say that?

Then, the light bulb went off in my head. What if I really did go to Walgreens?

And so it goes. After signing in the computer-automated system, getting my name on the electronic “list” (and Purelling my hands afterward) I resigned myself to a waiting seat alongside screaming babies and other individuals who sounded like they were hacking up their lungs. I grabbed a magazine in an effort to distract myself from eyeing the population next to me or from hearing their germs fly into my surrounding atmosphere. I came very close several times to giving in and going to the Urgent Care. Ironically enough, the tattooed individual next to me told me he just came from the place and there was a two hour wait. So I hung on to my faith and held tight.

Twenty minutes later, I was in. Twenty minutes later, I was out. With an antibiotic. Vwa-la! Now was it really that hard the first time Mr. Primary Care Physician?

Half the wait, a third of the price, and a fourth of the drive it would have taken to go to that Urgent Care. No need to take “time off” from work; they’re open til 7:30 p.m. every weekday. Complete with a follow-up “How are you feeling?” phone call two days later from the "Take-Care. Clinic" themselves. It’s brilliant! I would highly recommend it to anybody.

This particular Walgreens actually won some more brownie points in my book because they were the ones who enlightened me by telling me that a “medicine” my vet had recommended for Milo’s pneumonia was actually a human dietary supplement taken to manage weight control.

...Excuse me!?

What are doctor’s coming to, these days.